Scott Hartnell Says Penalty Against Lightning Was ‘Stupid’

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Flyers are frustrated. The season hasn’t been a good one so far, and there haven’t been any signs that it’s close to being turned around.

It came to a head for Scott Hartnell Monday night against the Lightning, when Hartnell took a bad penalty and was benched by coach Peter Laviolette.

“Well sometimes you have a brain cramp during a game and frustrated just with how the season is going, personally how things are going, and decided to take it out on a little player out there,” Hartnell told Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show on Thursday. “Kind of laugh about it now, but it was stupid and it put the team at risk to going down a goal I think, but the boys killed it off. Lavy [Laviolette] was trying to send a message to me to wake it up, and to the team as well. So hopefully, not only does that go for me, hopefully it goes for everybody. There’s some consistency there too.”

“No [Laviolette] didn’t say anything. I knew [the benching] was coming., deep down you are cheering for the boys to kill it off just so it doesn’t look twice as worse. Figured I sit down a few shifts, but it ended up being the rest of the period. I played a couple in the third, but that happens sometimes. You take the good with the bad and keep working hard.”

The Flyers are off until Sunday, when they take on the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team that has been able to bring the best out of the Flyers until recently. In their last game the Flyers got off to a 4-1 lead, and eventually surrendered it and lost 5-4.